


(Don't) Need an Aphrodisiac If I've Got You

by counterheist



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: First Time, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Romano's Filthy Vocabulary, Sensations Condoms For Her, adorkable assholes, and despite all this a happy ending?!, bad timing, because of embarrassment and idiocy, clean colons are happy colons, misuse of condoms, please, please don't let the tags deter you from reading this fic, romano's grandpa was downstairs the entire time cheering them on, shower time, spain do your best, special places, unfortunate happenings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 21:39:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For <a href="http://zieberich.tumblr.com">zieb</a>. Prompt: Basically the usual suspects as awkward teenagers; enthusiastically consensual but really, really awkward and surprisingly stupidly executed first time. (<i>"Surely sexymilfs.com would never lie to you, right? Right???"</i>)  Something silly and stupid and rather unsexy (<i>to the reader, at least</i>), basically.</p><p>Title paraphrased from a Conya doujin.</p><p>Please enjoy, and know that while I am slightly sorry, I am actually not sorry at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Don't) Need an Aphrodisiac If I've Got You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zieb](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=zieb).



When he is seventeen, going on eighteen, Antonio decides, after much consultation with his friends, to give himself as a birthday present.

“Romano’s gonna flip his shit,” Bertl says around a mouthful of applesauce. The other kids used to tease him for bringing that stuff in his lunches, back in the days when girls – or boys, in Antonio and Berwald and Francis’s cases, which would maybe have turned up more of a fuss anywhere else because anywhere else didn’t have Berwald’s scary-faced mom threatening to sue the school and then burn it down if aforementioned fuss were made – had just gone from gross to interesting. Really. _Interesting_. The other kids don’t tease Bertl about it so much now because he hides the containers in the bottom of his bag and only opens them when Francis and Toño are around. “But, like, in a good way,” he finishes lamely with a wave of the spoon in his hand.

He drops the spoon accidentally because the world never lets him be cool, but luckily his friends are otherwise occupied as he scrabbles to retrieve it from the gravelly ground. At least this time it didn’t fly past the fence and down onto somebody’s head.

The three of them, Toño and Francis and Bertl, the Terrible Three, always have lunch on top of the roof of the school library, a prime spot for throwing things both intentionally and not, and that’s where they are one Thursday when Antonio sets down his spoon and cup of flan and says, quite seriously, “I have a horrible, terrible problem.”

“Hm,” Bertl says in his infinite wisdom, as he rips the foil off the top of his cup of applesauce.

“Right to tighten,” Francis nods, looking at a crossword and scratching the six blonde hairs on his chin that only count as stubble in his own mind, “and left to loosen.”

“That’s not it,” Antonio sighs. He drapes himself back onto the wobbly, rusted, chain-link fence separating him from a three-story drop. “It’s Romano’s birthday tomorrow.”

Neither Bertl nor Francis look up at the mention of Romano, because by now they’re quite used to it and desperately hoping that it’s just a phase. Romano Vargas from class 2-B is kind of a bitch and Toño could do so, so much better than him. Not in their class, or anything, no, because he’s already gone on a date with both of the possible candidates. After one kiss Francis and he decided that no, nope, no, let’s just, no, so, let’s just, talk about football. 

( _Antonio and Berwald don’t talk about what went on during their date and everybody is too scared to ask._ )

But all that aside, there are plenty of lucky young homos – “Francis you can’t say that!” “Oh _I_ can. It’s _you_ who can’t” – in the grade below, if Antonio feels like robbing the cradle, or above, if he feels like getting robbed, so Francis and Bertl have no idea why he would settle for such a cranky one. 

“Guys?”

They share a look, over newspaper and snack, and then mutually agree to play nice. Romano Vargas from class 2-B hasn’t actually done anything wrong yet. And he’s not so bad to look at when he’s angry.

“Do you need help getting him a present?” Francis asks, scribbling out a block of answers in pen, because he’s the kind of asshole who does crosswords in pen. He hates himself a little bit, for that, for being so amazing. Except not at all; he’s amazing, and he loves himself for being that way and making everything around him amazing by osmosis. It’s a double-edged sword. It is his blessing. It is his curse. He is the Spiderman of Existentialism. “The best gifts come from the heart,” he says with a flourish perhaps a little more Iron Man than Web-Slinger, “so you were right to come to me.”

And then he tells Antonio to get Romano panties, to which Antonio replies, “Why?”

To which Francis replies, “For when you have sex,” he winks, “it’s a gift for you both.”

To which Antonio replies, “Sex?”

To which Bertl almost chokes himself to an unfortunate, young death, because he has no idea why Toño doesn’t remember what sex is, how does any teenage boy not remember what that is, sexsexsex, but he’ll die of embarrassment if he has to hear Francis’s version of The Talk again and also the mere mention of the word makes his dick go a little bit hard ( _sexsexsex_ ) goddamn hormones. “I-I have to go take a piss see you later bye—”

Except now Antonio’s launching into a story of how he and Romano have _held hands_ , and how they’ve been _hugging in public_ for “two whole weeks!” even though they’ve been dating for, like, eight million months – “Eight months and sixteen days and” – and it’s one part sickening and two parts kind of sad. And then Bertl can’t leave, because somehow, between the three of them, Antonio’s decided to go and give up his Purity and Marriageable Virtue for Romano’s birthday.

( _Despite many attempts, Francis and Bertl still haven’t been able to convince Antonio that he doesn’t have those things to begin with, but every time they start in again Antonio holds up a dog-eared, weathered copy of Cosmo and that is that._ )

Bertl is reasonably sure they have this thing backwards, since Toño is older, and taller, and taller, and older than Romano. His hands are bigger, too; Francis snuck both of their measurements during the last school festival. By rights, Toño should be doing the cherry-popping, at least Bertl thinks, maybe, but as soon as he thinks about thinking about it he _sees_ it in his mind’s eye and he has to strike up a conversation about football or risk throwing up his applesauce over the side of the roof.

Gross.

He looks over to where Antonio and Francis are plotting, lunches forgotten, and realizes that he’s gone and let his mind wander while his eyes stare at their asses – again – and yeah, he’s done with his lunch. He makes a remark about how wonderfully Romano’s going to take this, except not, drops his spoon, and decides to hell with it. Tossing the half-empty cup over the fence, he rubs his hands together and runs over to join in the planning party, to the dulcet tones of whoever had been about to enter the library shouting in surprise and frustration.

During the rest of lunch period, they plot.

Antonio continues to plot by himself through the rest of his classes, and by the time he’s going to meet up with Romano at the bicycle racks, he has a pretty solid game plan in his mind. And also a handful of Sensations condoms in his back pocket, courtesy of Francis’s sticky fingers. Antonio hopes the nurse won’t miss them, because they don’t look like the plain clear plastic packets in the blue glass jar that everyone giggles at when they have to walk by. They look a lot fancier and more expensive. In fact, they also look like maybe they won’t be appropriate? Maybe, because the purple packaging says ‘Her Pleasure’ on it, and ‘designed to increase her stimulation’ and well. Ah. They’ll still work, right, even though there isn’t a her involved? Antonio pats his back pocket subconsciously and resolves to check the internet a little more tonight, for last minute tips. There are some things you can’t really ask your friends for help on, after all.

And one of those things is women’s condoms.

“Oi. Dumbass.”

With a guilty spin, Antonio turns to see that Romano’s snuck up on him again. It’s not that Romano’s ever very quiet, not at all, but Antonio gets distracted a lot, and Romano looks so cute today, his school tie is askew and he probably doesn’t know because if he did he’d go and correct it really quickly, but Antonio doesn’t want him to do that because he’s cuter like this, all imperfect and starting to complain? Huh?

“S-stop staring at me!” Romano shouts in a huff as he unlocks his bicycle. “It’s really weird. So stop it! Is there something on my face? Hey! Hey if there’s something on my face you better fucking tell me.” Once the lock and chain sit safely coiled inside the wire basket on the front of his bike, Romano starts walking towards the school gate without waiting for Antonio. He compulsively begins patting at his face, looking around to see if anyone – besides Antonio— is watching, because if there’s one thing Romano hates ( _and there isn’t, there are many and multitudes_ ), it’s not looking his best in public.

That’s something Romano does a lot, the walking away. That, and also the worrying about what he looks like. Antonio’s used to them both. He’s pretty sure if he told Romano that he’s looking really handsome today that Romano would smack him and then glow with pride the whole way home. He’s pretty sure if he didn’t move at all Romano would stop and wait for him, and call back to him, and walk back to him and worry over him. Something like that.

( _He may have tested the concepts one—two—ten times already._ )

Catching up, unprompted this time, Antonio clears his throat and asks, “What are you doing tomorrow after school, Roma?”

“Stuff,” Romano replies.

“Cool,” Antonio says.

Theirs is a passionate romance, wrought with affection and really clever turns of phrase. They’re like poets, truly. Antonio is often surprised they weren’t born in the 14th century, maybe in Florence, back in those times when everybody wore tights all the time and also serenaded their boyfriends with poems and flowers every single day, and never called them stupid, or told them that they were ‘okay’ after they worked really hard to prepare a picnic lunch, or said things like “I wish you were as hot as Iker Casillas” while they were doing boyfriend stuff like loitering around furniture stores while their parents shopped.

“You missed the turn to your house! Hey! Toño, what’s wrong with you?” Romano’s voice breaks through the pleasant fog of Renaissance-shaded daydreams floating through Antonio’s mind. “Besides all the usual stuff that’s wrong with you.”

“Just the usual stuff,” Antonio says mildly. The condoms feel like they weigh a ton and a half in his back pocket, and he’s beginning to wonder whether he should make up his own poems or whether he should quote someone famous tomorrow, to make sure everything goes right. Can you have a good first time without poetry, or is that just dooming the relationship to failure? Antonio really, really doesn’t want to doom Romano and him. Unless he’s dooming them to _forever_.

Oh.

That’s a good one.

Antonio writes that one down in the little red diary in the back of his mind.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Romano mumbles. “So…”

“Yeah…”

The peck Romano plants on Antonio’s cheek only deepens Antonio’s resolve to make sure everything goes absolutely _perfect_. He’s going to think of everything, and there will be nothing that’s bad, and only things that are good, and Romano will love him and in nine years when they’re out of school for good they’ll get married and adopt two children and have cats and turtles and maybe a dog and Romano will wear a frilly apron every single morning. Yeah. Antonio knows he can do it. “ThanksRomabye!” Antonio shouts, scurrying across the sidewalk and up to his bedroom at top speed.

As soon as his browser comes up, he goes to bestfirsttimeevergaysex.com and gets ready for a quality education.

The next day, he begins making mistakes almost as soon as he wakes up, and it sets him into the closest thing to a bad mood that he’s had in months. Not since the day they touched on endangered species in class and he’d had to see giant pictures of all the turtles in the world that might not have homes anymore did he sport such a dark expression when walking into homeroom. From two desks away and one to the left, Francis whispers, “What’s wrong?”

From three desks away, diagonally, Bertl whispers, “What happened to your hair?”

Antonio plops down at his desk, pushes his head onto his folded arms, and doesn’t give his friends a response. He also doesn’t give the teacher a response when she asks him to stand and read the next passage, which means he gets a detention after school. He only barely manages to swing it to a lunchtime detention, cleaning erasers, because the teacher actually likes him a lot. All the teachers seem to like Antonio; most people seem to like Antonio, and he likes most people, but he loves Romano and he has big plans for after school.

On the positive side, all the chalk dust makes the gel in his hair finally set. Antonio doesn’t know how Romano manages to make putting stuff in his hair look so easy, because Antonio spent a whole hour trying to make the fistful of goop he put in there stop looking so goop-like with only dubious results. He’s probably going to have to shower before— before. Because the internet said that he should do that anyway if he wants to, well, _do it like that_ , and Cosmo said he should try and look his best, and the guy in the picture on the next page totally had stuff in his hair and also a waxed chest, which Antonio is suddenly really glad he didn’t attempt after the hair experiment went as it did, although the package in his sister’s bathroom says that it’s Completely Painless.

Maybe he can…

Maybe not this time.

When he runs to the drugstore after school, Antonio deliberately does not pause at the aisle with all the wax and stuff, even though the girl in the picture really looked like she’d wanted to have sex with the guy in the picture. Romano isn’t a girl. Although Romano has rolled his eyes at Antonio when they’ve gone swimming together, which at the time Antonio thought was just Romano being Romano, but could quite possibly have been Romano scoffing at Antonio’s unwaxed chest and he clenches his left hand around the handle to the red plastic shopping basket he picked up at the front of the store and reminds himself that he’s Not Even Going to Try That because the internet told him to keep it simple. Simple is sexy. It also told him about fifty things to do to keep it simple, which confuses him, but it’s the internet so it has to know.

He gets cinnamon-scented candles.

And a package of chocolate.

And a bottle of the cheapest lube on the shelf, because the internet told him he needed it but it’s really expensive and mostly water anyway? Antonio shrugs and tosses it into his basket. He thinks about getting roses too, for the petals, but then he remembers that Romano’s mother has some in her garden. She wouldn’t mind Antonio giving some to Romano; she loves Antonio!

Finally, Antonio snags a _kit_ off one of the personal hygiene shelves, because the internet highly suggested it, and there were how-to guides, and even though the packaging says it’s _also_ for ladies, the sites were for men, and this whole business really confuses him, but if it makes his first time with Romano better then it can’t hurt. Although it sounds like it’s going to hurt. But it can’t. Can it?

Satisfied with his selections, mostly, Antonio practically skips to the checkout. The cashier is a lady who used to babysit him when he was three, and he smiles his widest at her even when her eyes do weird things as she scans through his basket. He hands her a twenty and a ten and tells her to keep all fifty-two cents of the change, because things are looking up. He has all the tools he needs. Now all Antonio has to do is prepare himself, and get to Romano’s house, and get Romano alone, and work his magic: the magic of love.

‘It won’t be hard,’ he tells himself as he walks home, ‘I can do this!’

Less than an hour later, Romano barges into Antonio’s bedroom without knocking, because he never knocks, and shouts, “Oi! Don’t go dying on my birthday!”

From his– thankfully locked— bathroom, Antonio says, “I—I—I’m not, ahaha, R-Roma just go back h-,” his voice cracks, “home!”

“We heard screams while they were giving me my cake,” Romano accuses.

“I’ll be t-there in a second,” Antonio says.

“I’m picking that goddamned lock, Toño,” Romano says.

“Fuck,” Antonio says.

By pure luck, by the time Romano jiggles the bathroom door open, because even when it’s unlocked it always sticks, especially in the evenings when the wet air has the wood all swollen, Antonio has his pants back on and his recent purchases hidden in the towel hamper, and the expression on his face is mostly normal. He checks in the mirror just to make sure.

Sort of normal.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Romano asks, barging in.

“N-nothing,” Antonio says, stepping forward with a wince. He feels mildly betrayed by the internet, but repeats a mantra of ‘it’s for Romano, it’s for Romano’ inside his head, and it makes everything better. Not totally better, not yet, but it’s a start. “Don’t you want to go back home and open your presents and then after that in maybe an hour you could come back here?”

“I already opened them.”

“Or…,” Antonio thinks for a second, “Don’t you want to have dinner? I heard your Mamma is making special pasta just for you!”

“Already ate it,” Romano glares, “You _weren’t there_.”

Antonio winces again. He’s not sure even sex can salvage his day full of screw-ups, and sex can solve everything, except teen pregnancies and your self-image, according to Cosmo, which is fine because Antonio can’t get pregnant and he’s okay with how he sees himself, and sex can solve all the other things. All the other things except, quite possibly, just how angry Romano looks at being forgotten all day by his boyfriend. Antonio’s gotta do something to fix this, now, quickly, _now_.

He does this by throwing his face at Romano’s face, and sighs in relief when that actually works. “Romano,” he breathes out between kisses, because they’ve gotten pretty good at timing when to come up for air after the first two disastrous kissing sessions when Romano had fainted because he hadn’t wanted to be the first one to break away. “Romano, can I give you my present now?”

“Mmmm,” Romano says, dipping his head forward.

“Great!” Antonio chirps, just before sticking his hand down Romano’s pants. There isn’t much room between the fabric and Romano’s belt, but Antonio manages, until the choking sound that Romano makes when he manages elicits concerned parental calls and Antonio remembers that Romano never shuts the bedroom door behind him when he barges in, because he is not ashamed of their love and Antonio isn’t either, and also Antonio’s Mama has a rule about boyfriends in bedrooms.

( _The rule is ‘my babies are too young for this, I feel like I was changing your diapers yesterday’ but Antonio’s Mama loves Roma as much, if not in the same way, as Antonio does, so Romano spends a whole lot of time in Antonio’s bedroom anyway, he just never closes the door because he’s lazy._ )

Antonio unsticks his hand and walkwaddlehops over to the door, slamming and locking it as quickly as he can, which is not very sexy, probably, but having his parents or his sister asking him what he’s doing is even less sexy.

Back in the doorway to Antonio’s bathroom, Romano gapes for a few seconds, before asking, “What is _wrong_ with you?” Which is something that he asks every day, so Antonio keeps going with his plans.

Salvaging the mood is step number one.

“I…” he trails off and sheepishly runs his hand through his hair. “Ah…” He bites his lip. And looks up at Romano through his eyelashes.

Romano looks back. “What?”

“Ah…”

And finally goes pink. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Y-you…”

Antonio nods. “Yeah.”

“You’re cheaper than I fucking thought if this is my present,” Romano whispers, sitting on Antonio’s bed delicately, tucking one foot then the other underneath his legs. His words are much, much more harsh than his expression, but neither of them is quite right for the occasion. Antonio’s hardly being cheap! He’s giving Romano the most special gift a teenager can ever give ever, and both Cosmo and the internet agree on that so it must be extra true. “Come on.”

“Huh?” Antonio doesn’t have a shirt on, because he didn’t have time, and his butt still feels weird and he’s cold, and his socks are wet and he doesn’t want to think about why, and he has the horrible feeling that Romano has missed the point. For once, the person missing the point is not Antonio, but Antonio can’t get any satisfaction from that because the point is really important! “No, I meant—”

“What?”

Romano’s face doesn’t change when Antonio pulls the candles out of the hamper and sets them on his computer desk. It doesn’t change when Antonio decides that it will probably be better to distribute the light more evenly, and takes one and sets it over on the little table next to his bed, where he keeps his tissues, and his Cosmos, and Romano’s last school picture, and the picture of their five month anniversary, and also all of his porn, except that’s locked in the little drawer part of the table, and not sitting out in the open like all of the rest of the things. Romano’s face doesn’t even change when Antonio turns off the lights, then turns them on again because he needs to see to light the candles, lights the candles with a match, and then turns the lights off again.

“…I don’t get it,” Romano says, helpfully.

“Your present from me is me,” Antonio says, also helpfully, “And I love you.”

The noise Romano makes reminds Antonio of the time he went to the zoo with his first grade class and one of the ostriches was sick, and then the keepers rushed all the children over to look at the tigers instead because the ostrich was even worse than sick; it was dying. Antonio thinks about the smell of dead ostrich and then reminds himself that if this is going to be perfect it has to be sexy, and dead ostriches aren’t sexy at all. “Um?”

“You asshole,” Romano says. Then he jumps at Antonio, and they knock over Antonio’s bedside table, and the candle wax luckily puts the flame out so the house doesn’t burn down, but the magazines scatter out over the floor and the noise is followed by Antonio’s entire family and also Romano’s grandfather shouting up to ask if everything’s okay, and Antonio realizes, as Romano’s tongue slips past his teeth, that he forgot to lock the drawer to his porn. That spills out all over the floor too, in a very pretty, rather organized fan of crinkled pictures and magazines and USB sticks worn from repeated insertion and removal and, as Romano always says, “Fuck!”

“Um.”

They try to scramble up at the same time, and inevitably only get tangled up in each other and bring both of their bodies crashing back down again. On the second attempt, Romano manages to grab the side of the bed and slither his way away from the mess with a bright red flush and eyes wider than the dinner plates at Alfred Jones’s house. When Antonio decides that getting the floor cleared up is more important than standing, he manages to see what Romano is looking at, by chance, and then his flush begins to rival Romano’s and everything is going just as bad as it was earlier in the day before Antonio had the chance to shower after Gym. Maybe worse.

“Are those twins?” Romano breathes in horror.

Much.

Worse.

“N-y-I… Romano, I love you,” Antonio shouts while waving his arms back and forth in a way that reminds him a bit of Romano, when Romano’s flustered, he’s always making weird gestures that Antonio doesn’t understand and doesn’t think anybody else does either, but they’re part of what makes Romano Romano, so it’s okay, and maybe the familiarity will make Romano look at Antonio’s face or his arms and not the stuff on the floor which Antonio didn’t exactly want Romano to see yet, because you can’t do the weird stuff until the second time, and now Romano’s looking at the pictures with the guy licking the other guy’s… his a— and Romano’s going green and Antonio needs his porn back in his porn drawer now, ah ha _ha_ , why didn’t Cosmo warn him about this?! “And I want to be with you!”

It takes a little more convincing than that. It takes Antonio retrieving all the other things that he’d stashed in the hamper—perhaps not _all_ of them, he thinks with a shudder— and seven foil-wrapped chocolates shoved into Romano’s hands, and about twenty minutes of kissing, which is their new record. It mostly takes Antonio putting his porn away, apparently, because right after he remembers to do that, Romano wipes the last smear of chocolate away from the corners of his mouth, which Antonio can’t help but stare at for a little bit longer than Romano probably meant him to, and then Romano’s nodding with a whole lot less hesitation than before, and now they’re both in agreement and they can.

Do stuff.

Yes?

Antonio knows what happens next.

Romano knows what happens next.

They both want what happens next to happen next, and because of this, they sit at opposite ends of Antonio’s bed and stare at each other for two full minutes until Romano ducks his head underneath Antonio’s pillows and begins muttering things that are probably really indecent and foul and embarrassed, but it’s so like Romano, and the parts of Romano that Antonio actually really likes, loves even, as he’s said, that Antonio begins to feel himself respond. He can do this. Except, he remembers belatedly, Romano’s the one who needs to be getting hard right now, and his pants don’t look any tighter than normal, which is kind of tight, actually, but Antonio never complains because he likes how it looks, even though it looks a little uncomfortable.

His own pants get a little uncomfortable just thinking about it.

At last some progress!

But, Antonio forces his mind to remember, not exactly the right kind of progress. He runs the palm of his hand up and down the length of Romano’s spine and breathes out sharply through his nose when he touches skin. The motions of Romano’s adventures in cursing out the universe have been causing his shirt to ride up, a little bit at a time, and it’s silly, but his skin is warm, and smooth underneath Antonio’s fingers, and Romano’s relatives always say that he’s too thin and needs to eat more, another helping Roma, so scrawny, and Antonio wouldn’t complain if Romano did gain a few more pounds, because he’d love Romano no matter what he looked like, but even now, scrawny and hiding, Antonio feels the shuddering he feels when Romano sits behind him, balancing on the back of Antonio’s bike, feet on the axles, holding tight both hands around Antonio’s middle as they race down the hill from the neighborhood pool.

Massaging Romano’s back, pushing his pressed shirt up until it won’t go any further, Antonio curls up against his boyfriend, end to end, and whispers horrible things in his ears, like “I love you,” and “Always,” and “I want you,” until it gets to the point that Romano’s ears are burning and he flips them over so he’s on top and he’s got Antonio pinned with his knees.

“I still hate you,” he says, shoving his hands against Antonio’s bare chest, “Dammit, Toño, why don’t you ever do anything properly?”

“I thought I was!”

“Well you aren’t,” Romano huffs, “so kiss me already and touch me where I _tell_ you.”

Antonio can’t argue with that. “Okay,” he says.

The first place Romano wants to be touched is his neck, and then his sides. Then his legs, and then his head, up and around his scalp like the indecent characters do when they’re really getting into the kissing on the telenovelas Antonio makes sure he never misses because he wants to know what happens next. Then it’s Romano’s arms and before Antonio knows it, Romano’s the one touching him, and his chest, and his back, and his butt ( _which feels funny again, but different_ ), and the waistband of his sweats, which are grey and old and really comfy so Antonio always wears them to bed. He contemplates this as Romano yanks them down. “Ah!” The air is a whole lot colder outside the pants than inside them, and Antonio’s, ah, _Toño_ , dips a little lower at the shock, but then it springs right back when Antonio realizes that Romano’s looking at it in the same way Romano looks at the cannoli in the display case at the bakery two streets over. It’s that same incredibly hungry look, and the only thought Antonio’s mind can piece together is that Romano chews a lot when he eats cannoli and that’s not something Antonio ever wants happening to his penis. 

Then Romano licks him and Antonio’s voice does the ostrich thing as his upper body vaults forward. “Rom-ah! The—we—,” Antonio drops the first condom packet he manages to grab three times before he can even start peeling the foil back. In response, Romano smirks and licks his lips and Antonio reminds himself that this is Romano’s birthday, and Romano’s present, and this is for Romano, and not for him, even though he can’t for the life of him stop staring at Romano’s tongue.

“R-right,” Romano stutters, looking at the purple foil. At some point he got rid of his pants, although his button-down is still scrunched up awkwardly from where Antonio pushed at it earlier. He’ll probably be mad about that later on, but Antonio can deal with that when it… comes.

Comes.

He gulps.

Antonio looks down. Romano’s… Romanito is looking very healthy tonight, Antonio thinks, very healthy, because there’s a little wet patch growing to the left of the buttons on Romano’s faded red, almost pink briefs and nothing smells like piss because that’s not what that is, and Antonio caused that to happen and his butt _still_ feels funny and he has to take a very deep breath, hold it for three counts and let it go because this is Romano’s present and looking at Romano’s crotch is making the shuddering come back ten times more forceful than it ever has before.

Right.

Antonio can do this.

Romano is staring at him, eyes dark, and Antonio can do this.

He smiles, and grabs the edge of the ribbed rubber circle between his teeth, and grabs Romano’s hips, doesn’t mind the chanted “fuck you, fuck you, fuck me, fuck you,” and dips his head. He has to move one of his hands away from Romano’s hips because this is a lot harder ( _sexsexsex_ ) than it ever looked in the pornos on his USBs, but he keeps on trying, Romano breathing faster and faster over him, until he slips, and he’s not exactly slipping the condom on so much as he’s kind of dragging one end downward while the other slides off the edge of Romanito’s tip, and his teeth are scraping and Romano’s got his head back in the pillows again, and suddenly there is a blast of white in Antonio’s left eye that is entirely one hundred percent less sexy than it looks in the pornos because in real life it _stings_ , and Romano’s still breathing fast, and his cock’s softening, and Antonio, as he sits back, condom caught and hanging on his left canine where he broke it, reflects that that is not how it’s supposed to go.

“Th-that doesn’t count!” he says, stumbling around his words as a little bit of semen slides down his throat, and it tastes funny, and then it tastes painful when it dances down his windpipe. When Antonio comes up from his coughing fit he’s lost the ruined and useless condom somewhere in his bed sheets and Romano is staring at him, dick soft and mouth parted open, and cheeks redder than a cherry.

Antonio wheezes at him.

“O-of course it doesn’t count,” Romano protests, waving his hands in a flutter, “That was a fluke!” His voice is husky, now, and it sounds nice, really nice, except Antonio is too busy hacking up jizz to fully appreciate it.

They agree that it doesn’t count, that the next time will be their real first, and that Romano never has that happen to him ever at all ever never, not once. On Try Number Two, Antonio carefully decides to put the condoms on with his hands; except his nail nicks the edge of the one he’s trying to slip onto Romano, and it splits open on the side. It takes twenty minutes for Try Number Three to happen, because Antonio gets the lube and it turns out that lube is really cold unless you do something to warm it, or get the kind that is warm on its own, and the cheapest kind isn’t that kind, and cold lube makes both of their cocks shrink down, dejected, even though they’re both seventeen and routinely get hard in the middle of class for no reason other than the stray thought that they have a penis and those are things that they like.

Try Number Three goes better.

That is, until Antonio realizes that he used half the lube up on Try Number Two, which is after he squirts the rest into his hand but mostly onto his much-abused bed sheets. He scrapes as much as he can off into a gloopy mess cradled in both hands. Blankly, he stares at Romano, who blankly stares back.

“Do you want…” Romano trails off.

“Can you…” Antonio trails off too.

Romano’s Adam’s apple bobs as he gulps and nods to himself and swipes a few fingers in the mess in Antonio’s hands, gathering about half of it. He has to rotate his hand to keep the mess from sliding back onto the sheets. “Lay back,” Romano starts, “I-I guess…”

With a soft breath, Antonio tries to imitate what he remembers the guys on the bottom doing in porn, except his legs don’t really like the angle, so he doesn’t make them stretch as far, but Romano pushes them anyway after snickering ( _“You look like an idio—” “Roma!”_ ), and then there is a wet, cold finger pushing into Antonio’s ass and he’s the one gulping.

“Are you…?”

Two. There are two, and Antonio wasn’t ready for the one, fuckohfuck, “Can you slow—”

And then there’s the third and Antonio can’t help the yelp or the kick, because it’s—it’s just _there_ because Romano just does things when he wants to, no waiting around, and normally Antonio likes that, but normally it doesn’t involve three fingers where he’s never quite been courageous enough to shove three fingers before, all at once, and the heel of Antonio’s foot catches the edge of Romano’s jaw.

Ten minutes and about two hundred kisses and six hundred apologies later, they’re ready for Try Number Four. Except now that they’re on Try Number Four, there isn’t all that much left in the lube bottle, or on Antonio’s hands, or on Romano’s, but it’s been over an hour and they aren’t about to stop _now_. With a shared nod, they decide to keep going. This time Antonio sticks his own fingers up his, well, _special place_ , and Romano watches him with the dinner plate eyes, left hand absently stroking the skin of his cock, and as Antonio carefully inserts finger number two, he thinks that this is going to be it. Antonio also thinks this is going to be it: the end of his Purity and Marriageable Virtue, and the sanctification of over eight months and sixteen days of love and devotion, and this is going to be his first time, and it’s going to be with someone special.

Someone special who looks as though he’s going to start having a heart attack at any moment. “Romaaa?” Antonio rasps out.

Romano whimpers.

Try Number Four almost becomes Failed Attempt Number Four. It is saved purely by Antonio’s quick decision-making skills and also Romano accidentally squeezing his dick too tight, thereby calming Romanito down ever so slightly. And then Antonio’s got his legs on Romano’s shoulders, which are buckling a little, so Antonio gives a little cheer to show them his support, do your best!, and then Romano smacks him and Try Number Four almost becomes Failed Attempt Number Four again, because they collapse into a giggling, smacking pile. Five minutes, fifty kisses and sixty-two apologies later, they decide to keep calling this attempt ‘Try Number Four’ or else, Toño. It is a very mutual decision and also Antonio has completely stopped giggling at this point.

Completely.

Ten more apology kisses, quick and penitent, and they are ready to continue, and Romano starts pushing in, and Antonio grips at the pillow behind and looks at his ceiling and thinks about how this always takes less time in the pornos.

“Stop moving around!” Romano is panting, which is sexy, but he also isn’t in yet, which is less sexy, but he’s still trying, which is promising. They never ever have this kind of trouble in the pornos.

“I’m not,” Antonio protests. But he is a little bit, which he can’t help! Because whenever Romano pokes at him the one way, it shoves him a little bit the other way, and their hips are mostly just wiggling at each other at this point, and maybe he should have showed Romano some of the instructional videos that he found about this, since it’s such an important part, but—

Romano doesn’t need the instructional videos anymore.

“ _Christ_ ,” he gasps.

Antonio mutters something back. He doesn’t know what that something is, because he’s been horribly, terribly lied to and _three fingers are not enough_ and _the cheapest lube is not enough_ and _Sensations for Her are probably fine for men to use except for the part where everything hurts_. His hands clench and twitch in the open air, while on top of him Romano says some things and he doesn’t even bother to listen because it _hurts_. Romano begins to push and pull, then, in a mishmash of jerks and thumps that don’t feel like how they look on Antonio’s computer screen, but Romano’s face is so happy that Antonio doesn’t comment; he just waits for this to get magical.

And waits.

“Roma?” he asks.

“ _Antonio_ ,” Romano replies in what is most definitely a sex-voice.

Oh.

“Can you…?” Antonio doesn’t even know what to ask, really. Can you do the thing that makes it magical and wonderful and grounds for us to get married and have babies ( _adopted with much care and preparation_ ) and cats and turtles? “Um.”

Romano’s response is a breathy rush of some dialect that Antonio doesn’t quite understand. It’s very sexy-sounding all on its own, even without the actual sex that they are having, which they are, and Antonio thinks it’s nice, but not as nice as Romano’s left hand roughly grabbing his penis, which is more-or-less what Antonio was asking for anyway, except Romano doesn’t touch Antonio like Antonio touches Antonio, under his covers with the lights off, and it’s not working.

It’s really not working.

And the cheap lube is mostly made of water.

And water dries.

“A-ah! Roma, can, maybe we should, ah, oh, let’s,” Antonio feels his Toño getting softer and softer, despite his head and his heart willing it to _stop doing that_ with such force that it feels as though he’s got an inner Romano full of spite trying to curse it back to attention. “Roma?!”

“ _Christ_ ,” Romano says, quietly, before slumping over Antonio’s chest and then rolling to the side. His hand follows him, which is fine, because by now it’s not doing anything for Antonio anyway, but he doesn’t pull out, which is bad, because every movement Romano makes is now rubbing raw and Antonio kind of feels horrible except for the part where his head and his heart want to jump around and sing.

At first, Antonio doesn’t think there’s going to be a Try Number Five, because Try Number Four was Success Number One. At first, Romano pulls himself out, and hugs Antonio like he sometimes does when they’re alone, and kisses his shoulder. At first, Antonio thinks this probably the best present he’s ever pulled off.

But then Romano starts griping about feeling disgusting, especially after he yanks his condom off and it spills all over. And then he yanks off Antonio’s with the same lack of ceremony and it doesn’t spill, because Antonio didn’t give it anything _to_ spill, and then Antonio decides now is the time for the de la Vega poem he memorized. And then Romano’s pride is invoked, so the de la Vega gets tabled and Try Number Five gets planned, because, “Are you saying I’m not good enough to get you off?!”

“No! I’m. ‘Yo no nací—’”

“Because what I’m hearing,” Romano rolls on top of Antonio again, and Antonio kind of needs a hot water bottle and some painkillers, or maybe some kisses, right now, and not 65 kilos of angry boyfriend bearing down on his torso. “Is that you can’t…” Romano looks away. “Get off to me,” he finishes, softer than a whisper.

Ah.

 _Ah_.

Why does Antonio get to get the cute boyfriend? His heart can’t take much more of this, Romano, oh, so cute, sometimes the things he does are just too cute for Antonio to handle and this is one of those times, and Antonio wants to dance and sing enthusiastically but he can’t because he’s a little bit trapped on his bed underneath the cutest person he’s ever met. “Roma!” he shouts, pulling Romano towards him, closer, never mind the discomfort, “You’re so—and I—and you—it’s your birthday so this is _your_ present—and—you-- _I love you_ ,” he finishes. And, for Romano, he does die. It’s very fitting, he thinks, as he feels his heart fall away.

“What is wrong with you?!” Romano demands for the third time since he stormed into Antonio’s room.

“Just the usual stuff,” Antonio replies with a grin. Just the usual suspect killing him a little bit more, day by day, and sending him up to heaven while he’s still alive. Antonio can hear the harps if he closes his eyes tight enough, normally, but not now, because now Romano’s demanding for a Try Number Five, and if that’s what Romano wants. Well.

It’s Romano’s present.

For Try Number Five they have to be creative, because Romano ripped the last condom and there isn’t any lube left, and Antonio’s probably going to have to throw out his sheets, and his penis appears to have given up for the night after so many false starts, and Romano looks like he’s about to fall asleep any minute. There’s a lot riding against Try Number Five, but at that very thought Antonio’s Toño perks up a bit, so not all hope is lost. There’s a lot riding ( _sexsexsex_ ), and so they do what any normal seventeen-year-old boys in their position ( _sexsexsex_ ) would do.

They head for the bathroom. The cheap lube is mostly water, after all, and Antonio has both a showerhead and a full bathtub, not to mention a sink and a toilet, although those are probably a little _too_ weird, even if that’s what the second time ( _second! Antonio and Romano have had sex, they’ve had sex together, this is their second time, they are fully and completely sex-having together!_ ) is for. Antonio thinks the bath is probably the best way, because then they won’t run out of water no matter what, and it will be warm, and baths always soothe his aches. He floats the idea…

“Do you want to fucking drown in there?”

And it sinks.

Showers aren’t so bad, though, they make him feel good too, with all the steam, and he may or may not ( _maymaymay_ ) have thought about what it would be like to share a shower with Romano before. Antonio suggests a shower…

“This is the worst plot to kill me you’ve ever had, dumbass, do you want us both to slip and fall and cut ourselves against the glass, and get concussions, and _die_?!”

And sighs.

“I don’t,” he bites his lip and mumbles to the ground, because there really isn’t anything else he can think of that won’t hurt him in ways he doesn’t really want to be hurt, not like this, not just yet, and he actually kind of hates it when he tries really hard and it goes nowhere with Romano, although it’s not like that never happens, although not as much as people probably think, and—

“Here, stupid,” Romano says against Antonio’s ear, shoving him against the tiled wall and grabbing his dick. His strokes are just as quick and rough vertically as they were when they were horizontal, and it’s still not quite, it doesn’t, it could be, but. Then Romano starts to whisper. He whispers horrible things like “I love you,” and “Always,” and “I want you,” until it gets to the point that Antonio’s eyes are burning, and he realizes that he’s crying a little, and he shoves Romano’s hand away and uses his own because he needs this right now, a lot, but Romano’s hands aren’t, not, not yet, and he keeps saying the things that he’s saying, and Antonio, and.

And Antonio comes to darkness because the two strokes he’s able to get on his cock, just the way he likes it, are enough to send him over, double him over, and on the way down he knocks against the light switch, and flips it off. In the dark they can feel each other breathing, can hear each other blushing, can see each other falling.

The next morning, as they’re walking to school, Antonio grabs Romano’s hand. Predictably, Romano stutters and stumbles, because he’d been holding one of the handles of his bike with that, thanks, Idiot, but he doesn’t let go.

“Did you like your present?” Antonio asks.

“A little,” Romano answers.

“Cool,” Antonio replies.

**Author's Note:**

> The 'research' I did for this fic is probably going to make my targeted ads really weird for the next few days. In other news, the various lists of 'first time sex mistakes to avoid' are all really vague and unhelpful when you're trying to make for the most mistakeful first time sex you can.
> 
>  **Also:** The Spiderman of Existentialism is my new favorite nickname for France  
>  **Double Also:** Headcanon forever that Spain reads magazines targeted at women and teenage girls.  
>  **Triple Also:** Yes, that was a Dr. Horrible reference in there.
> 
>  **Quadruple Also:** [This is the poem](http://sehrgut.co.uk/tafelmusik/literary/critique/soneta-v-garcilaso-amor-de-mi-alma-stroope) Antonio was trying to recite/reference. Scroll down and you'll see it and its translation. It is a supreme asshole of a poem and I can totally see Spain reciting it to Romano very dramatically every few days.


End file.
